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Misanet.com / Daily News, 20 May - Kumbirai Kangai, the former Zimbabwean Minister of Lands and Agriculture, and a luminary of the liberation struggle, will on Monday appear in the High Court in Harare at the beginning of what should be a landmark trial. He faces charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act involving Z$ 228 million. Kangai, 63, is on Z$ 250,000 bail. His lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, of Byron Venturas, said yesterday: "The trial is definitely taking place on Monday. We want to get over with it." Samkange said Kangai will be jointly tried with Tobias Takavarasha, his former permanent secretary, and Martin Muchero, the former managing director of the government-owned Grain Marketing Board (GMB). Part Four of the Prevention of Corruption Act which deals with offences committed by public officers says if a public officer, in the course of his employment, does anything that is contrary to or inconsistent with his duty as a public officer, he shall be guilty of contravening the Act. - The officer shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding Z$ 3,000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding three years or to both such fine and such imprisonment. This is the first time since independence that a senior Zanu PF (governing party) official and government minister is standing trial for corruption. Kangai was one of the eight founding members of Dare reChimurenga, Zanu's supreme council formed in 1973 to spearhead the liberation war. He sat on the council with Herbert Chitepo and Josiah Tongogara, both late, as secretary for labour and social welfare. After independence he became Zimbabwe's first Minister of Labour and Social Welfare. Takavarasha is on Z$ 50,000 bail for allegedly misappropriating nearly Z$ 160 million through fraudulent deals at the GMB while Muchero, also on Z$ 50,000 bail is facing charges of fraud and corruption involving Z$ 176 million. The State alleges that following a poor farming season in 1997/8, the GMB was assigned to import 460,000 metric tonnes of maize for domestic consumption and to replenish strategic grain reserves. Kangai, the State, alleges, convened a meeting attended by Takavarasha, Muchero and the late deputy secretary for Lands and Agriculture, Gordon Sithole in June 1998 at which he underlined the need to stick to proper grain buying procedures. This entailed the GMB going to tender and respecting the pricing and import and export programme and other regulations governing parastatals in terms of the Audit Exchequer Act and the GMB Act. Three weeks later, however, Kangai allegedly flouted his own directive when he allowed the GMB to invite bids for 50 000 metric tonnes without going to tender. The State alleges that Kangai was endorsing a proposal made by Muchero to skirt regulations for this one-off buy and later negotiate for the balance of the tonnage with the companies selected in the initial 50,000 tonnes. The State also alleges that between 22 October 1998 and January 1999 a private company, Andrie CIE SA bought 80 000 metric tonnes of maize from the GMB at US$ 120 (about Z$ 6,800) per tonne for export to Malawi. GMB had, at about the same time, and with Kangai's alleged consent, contracted Andrie CIE SA to import maize from South Africa and the United States at prices anging between US$ 165 (about Z$ 9,400) and US$ 209 (about Z$ 11,900) a tonne. Kangai is accused of failing to disclose to the government that Andrie CIE SA was exporting the maize to Malawi and instead authorised that the maize export permits be issued, purporting that the GMB was the exporter. This was done to circumvent the government ban on maize exports by private companies and individuals. When he was arrested in March 2000, Shadreck Beta, the then Zanu PF chairman for Manicaland province disqualified Kangai from contesting the party's primary elections, saying that he had a pending court case. But it emerged there had been no instruction from the party's politburo. The Politburo then gave Kangai the green light to contest both the Zanu PF primary and subsequent parliamentary elections last June. He won the Buhera South seat. In July 2000, Kangai refused to move out of his office at Ngungunyana Building. This followed the appointment by President Mugabe of Joyce Mujuru as acting Minister after Kangai was arrested and hauled before the Harare Magistrates' Court. Kangai was subsequently replaced by Joseph Made who now heads the new Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, following a Cabinet reshuffle on 17 July 2000.
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